Chapter 14
Victoria Wells was born in 1928 to Rachel Stewart’s only sister, Lilith, and her husband Charles Brantson, a restaurateur. She was eleven when Rachel died in 1939, and according to her, she was mute for a year from the grief of losing her precious aunt.
Annie, Jonathan, and I huddled around Vicky as she fingered through hundreds of old family photographs. Some of the people seemed familiar, some did not. It was like coming out of a deep amnesia where large black clouds covered the majority of the light. When the memory was close, I’d squeeze my eyebrows together to try and force it, but it only gave me a headache. I held the butterfly in my hand for strength and loved the feel. I sensed it was a habit I once had.
Lilith was younger than Rachel by seven years, and I only recognized her in the pictures because of her long, blonde hair. In my mind, I could remember a beautiful, pale young woman swishing her hair around in the air and twirling it in her fingers when she was nervous. Vicky told us that there were just the two of us because our mother was so frail and sickly.
The doctors were surprised she was even able to birth two healthy children. After Lil came along, Vicky said her grandmother became so feeble, her mother and Rachel were raised by a nanny. These details were not something I recalled but was informed of by Vicky, who turned out to be quite the family historian. Thankfully.
Rachel and Lilith’s father, Sy Stewart, was a semi-wealthy contractor who took part in the development of Venice of America, the architectural masterpiece dreamed up and designed by an entrepreneur named Abbot Kinney. The story Vicky told sounded more like a documentary from the History Channel than a recount of a former life.
My father, or rather Rachel Stewart’s father, had rubbed elbows with the creators of Venice Beach. They were old pals, as she put it. Sy Stewart was somebody when the area was booming. From what Vicky said, he was also somebody his daughters despised.
Ocean Park and the several other pier amusement parks surrounding the man-made canal metropolis were the swing of the teens and twenties, and even the early thirties, until the city of Los Angeles got involved. Lagoons for swimming and boating were dug. Fancy restaurants and dance halls sprouted up to accommodate the crowds of fun seekers. The Ship Café on Venice Pier was one of Rachel’s and Stanford’s favorites, Vicky said. I couldn’t recall.
Up until the Depression, and even after it began, Venice Beach was the place to be seen for starlets and Hollywood bigwigs. Several movies were filmed in and around the area—films with Laurel and Hardy and the Little Rascals and lots of other popular actors of the time. Charlie Chaplin rented out the penthouse at the Waldorf on the boardwalk to be a part of the action. Vicky recalled the time when Rachel and Stanford took her to watch Spencer Tracy and Claire Trevor as they filmed the pier scenes in Dante’s Inferno. I wished I could remember that.
Menotti’s Buffet, a favorite hangout on Windward, had a speakeasy hidden in the basement and provided liquid entertainment after liquor was banned in the twenties. Aunt Rachel was a big fan of Menotti’s, she said. She always said it gave her access to her muse. “I figured it was really where she could rustle up a good martini,” Vicky added, “but no one ever talked to her much about her writing.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“It was a very private thing with her. She never even kept a copy of her book around.”
“Book? She only wrote one?” Annie piped in.
“She only published one. She wrote a dozen or more.”
“What happened to them?” My curiosity was killing me.
“They all burned up when her house went down in forty-five. I could swear Rachel came back and set the fire herself. She was that private. She never wanted any of them published. My mother snuck Soul of the Moon out and gave it to an editor friend of hers. That’s the only reason it ever made it to press.”
Annie and Jonathan looked at me as though I should be able to explain this odd behavior from Rachel. “Don’t look at me,” I said to them as Vicky smiled.
“Do you have a copy of the book?” Annie asked Vicky hopefully.
“I wish I did. Mine’s been gone a long time. I’ve tried for years to find another copy, but it was a pretty controversial novel, so it’s been hard to come by. Rachel was writing about reincarnation way back then. It was a favorite for the churches to burn.” She stood and headed to the front deck for another smoke. This time we all followed her.
I watched Vicky stare into the canal for a good few minutes, wondering what was going through her mind and wishing now more than ever that I could get a copy of Rachel’s book. It hurt knowing that all her other work had perished before I could see it or remember it.
“She met her Dr. Stanford at Menotti’s,” Vicky said, breaking the silence, aptly skipping away from the last conversation. “My aunt Rachel bloomed like a flower after he came along.”
I asked the question that I’d been dying to know. “Did it bother her that he was married?”
Vicky flicked the growing ash into the water before looking over at me. “Stanford and Rachel had something special. Something no one else could quite understand. He left his marriage the very night he met Rachel.”
“But Stanford Reed’s obituary said he was married at the time of his death.”
“He was. Divorce wasn’t something you just did back in those days. It wasn’t that simple.”
Annie and Jonathan stood absolutely still, listening to each word that passed between Victoria Wells and me.
“If he loved Rachel so much, why didn’t he make an honest woman of her?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jonathan look down at his feet, seemingly ashamed of the acts he committed in his last life.
She crushed the cigarette out beneath her foot and then reached to hold my hand. This time her skin was warm and comforting. “You wouldn’t let him. You didn’t want him to leave his children without their father. He wanted to. It was you.” She smiled, showing smoke-yellowed teeth, patting my hand, and then letting go. “You told him you’d never see him again if he left his family.”
I looked back at Jonathan in amazement, remembering in a flash the moment I had refused Stanford’s proposal, grabbing the charm at my neck and holding it to my lips.
“That’s right,” she said, her eyes filling. “He made that butterfly from the gold of the wedding ring you refused. He left his wife anyway. He moved into the guest-house, so he’d still be near his children, as you requested. Stanford was a good, loving man, and he just couldn’t live that kind of lie. He wanted only you.”
Vicky excused herself to go inside, and Annie ran off to the bathroom to freshen up. Jonathan came toward me. He took the charm in hand and kissed it, gentling it back against my chest. “Things haven’t changed, Becka. I still want only you.” His eyes were wet and mournful when they came to mine.
“You were a pretty amazing guy, weren’t you?” I paused a moment when I realized how that sounded. “Let me rephrase that. You are a pretty amazing guy.” I kissed him then, needing to be close to the man who had followed me to this lifetime because he just couldn’t let me go.
~ ~ ~
We stayed a few days more to be with Vicky to learn as much as we could about our previous life together. She took us around to where all of Rachel and Stanford’s favorite places used to be. The piers and amusement parks were all gone, and most of the canal system and lagoons were covered with bland condo complexes, retail stores, and three-star hotels.
From what Vicky said, Rachel Stewart had been a loner. Her father’s money had allowed her the freedom of being a not-so-starving artist in a place of fancy free. The only loves she shared were those of her sister who died too young, of Victoria who was as close to her own daughter as possible, and Stanford Reed, a handsome doctor who could never truly be her own. It seemed a pretty sad life. I felt fortunate to have evolved into this one.
Vicky told us as much as she knew about Dr. Reed’s background, but Jonathan couldn’t recall anything in detail, only vague gut feelings and momentary Deja vu, and nothing concrete. He waved it off, acting as if he didn’t really want to know, but I could tell he’d definitely be doing some research. It’s against human nature to let something like that alone.
The morning before we piled into the car to head home, Vicky told us she had one more place she wanted us to see before we left her. We followed behind her sunflower yellow ‘68 Volkswagen Bug, the original version of Rich’s fancy new car, to the Malibu shoreline. We walked behind her for what seemed like a mile, feeling an eerie familiarity as we reached the stretch of beach near the rocks.
“This is where Rachel was found,” she said, turning around to face us and then lifting her eyes to follow a gull as it flew overhead. “And this,” she pointed up near the rocks where the waves crashed, “is where Dr. Reed shot himself two months later.” She walked over to where the rocks indented into a small cove and then rubbed her sneaker in the sand. “He sat right here and ended his suffering. He just couldn’t let her go. He was too grief-stricken to go on.”
Annie knelt down where Rachel was found and sifted the sand between her fingers. “Do you remember this place, Becka? Is this the place from your dream?”
My body shook from head to toe. This place was different than in my dream, but very much the same. Houses now lined the shore, and the light of day made it look more crowded, but it was the place. The spot in the sand where Stanford had killed himself was the very place we’d made love that night, just before we waded into the water. I could tell by the way he ran his hand over the smooth, flat rock, Jonathan remembered as well. Vicky watched us move around the dunes, retracing a scene from very long ago.
“I figured you’d need to see this place one more time before you could let it go.” She came up to my side, her arm coming in around my back to pull me to her. “You have to let it all go, Becka Clemmons, because this time around you and your soul mate can be together with no one in your way. You don’t need to be dwelling on all these hurtful memories. You need to take the love that survived and let it work its magic.” Jonathan came in on the other side of Vicky and placed his arm over her shoulders, squeezing her into him as though they’d been the closest of friends.
“You two beautiful young people need to go on about living and never look back,” Vicky said. “Rachel and Stanford would have wanted it that way. Hell, they worked some kind of miracle to make it happen, so you better not disappoint them.”
The water crashed in against the rock and washed away the sand that Annie had placed there, cleansing away the sadness it represented. The place where Rachel Stewart’s dead body had washed ashore was now indistinguishable from any other on the shore. We all walked away from that beach, listening to the gulls cry overhead and the unforgiving water heave its heavy sigh. Closure was the word that came to mind.
Closure and rebirth.
~ ~ ~
“Annie, have you spoken to Rich since we got here?” I asked her, scooting my purse out of Jonathan’s front seat and sitting down, preparing for our long drive home.
“Just that first morning when you and lover boy here took off.”
Jonathan laughed at the nickname and took a drink from the water bottle.
“Humph. That doesn’t seem like Rich. Usually he calls a half dozen times a day,” I said, worried and wondering.
Annie belched a light, girlish belch, letting the bubbles from her 7Up escape. “He said he’s been really busy working on that factory thing. I guess he’s got all the people ready.”
“Still,” I said, not feeling right about it even now. “I guess he’s just busy. French fry?” I held up the bag to Annie in the back seat, and she took the whole bag, eating three or four greasy strings of potato before leaving only a few and giving me back the bag. “Thanks,” I blew out, tearing the top of the bag off to give Jonathan easy access to take the rest.
He took one and put it in his mouth. “You have the rest of them,” he said, winking at me, cutting my irritation down to a nub. “You’re gonna need your strength.” He reached across the front seat and squeezed my thigh, trailing his hand up, taunting, before tracing it back down again. What was this? I asked myself, encouraged by the possibilities.
“Hey,” Annie shouted from the back seat. “There will be none of that while I’m in the car, kids. It’s been too damn long, and I can’t take it.” She grunted her disapproval as she lay back in the seat, shifting around until she got comfortable. She fell asleep as soon as the car hit the freeway.
“She’s just like a baby,” he whispered, seeing her fast asleep in the rearview mirror. “The minute the car is moving, she’s out.” I scooted in next to him and laid my head on his shoulder, thankful for the first quiet moment alone since before we left home. He tilted his head against mine and ran his right hand along my jaw line, cupping my cheek to his. It was the single most sensuous thing I’d ever experienced.
~ ~ ~
We reached Jonathan’s doorstep about nine p.m. that night, exhausted from the trip and everything we’d learned. We’d dropped the sleepy Annie off at her place, and then cruised up the hill to the mini-mansion.
After raiding the refrigerator and sneaking past the library door, we made our way up the stairs and into a luxurious bubble bath, nibbling on ruby grapes like we were in a scene from a Greek tragedy. We took turns feeding one another, talking about our adventure and fondling one another like we were teenagers in the back seat of his father’s sedan. If my world could have been any better at that moment, I wasn’t sure how. Stanford Reed had nothing on Jonathan Parker, and Becka, not Rachel, had serious plans for this man’s body and soul.
“You know tomorrow’s Saturday. You promised me dinner on Saturday, remember?” I bit down on a grape.
He lifted my left foot out of the warm water and blew the bubbles from my toes. I wasn’t sure of his plan until he started in with the smallest one, taking each in turn into his mouth, sucking and nibbling until I dropped the grapes into the water.
“You’re trying to distract me,” I practically panted. “It’s not gonna work.” With that he stopped. “That doesn’t mean I want you to stop.” He continued again, biting the arch of my foot, and then running his tongue between my toes. I held my breath.
As we faced each other in the oversize tub, he placed that well massaged foot over his right shoulder and ran his hand inside the length of my leg, finding me quivering and ready at the bottom of the bath. “Does this mean you know me well enough now, Ms. Clemmons?”
I was silent for a long time as he touched me. My eyes closed, my heart felt full, and my breathing quickened. The scent of lavender flooded my senses, and complete arousal enveloped me. Of all the things I know in this world, at that moment I knew Jonathan Parker and I were meant for one another. I opened my eyes to the stars shining in on us from the window above. “Oh, I know you all right.”
“It’s about time.” He stood up abruptly, water and bubbles sliding down his beautiful, naked body. He held out his hand, which I took willingly, feeling drunk from the senses taking me over. He stepped out onto the sheepskin rug and lifted my wet body out, laying me down right there in the bathroom. This was exactly what I needed, and the flush of fulfillment I’d been craving was quick to follow.
~ ~ ~
For the first time in my adult life I slept in until ten in the morning. When my eyelids finally peeled back, I was shocked to see the nearly midday sun peeking through the tiny slits between the heavy velvet curtains in Jonathan’s room. He was gone. A small carafe of coffee and a cranberry muffin sat atop a serving tray on the night table. Obviously, it’d been placed there hours before in anticipation of my waking at any moment.
I leaned back against the pillows and pulled the comforter up around my face, smelling the lingering scents of our lovemaking, and I smiled. No more dream, no more loneliness, and no more questions existed. Only the here and the now and the life I had in front of me remained.
I reached for the phone at the side of the bed and set to catching up with life. According to Candy, everything at the café was just fine, and she and her date would see me tonight, seven thirty sharp. Her date? I thought about questioning her, but left it for a surprise.
Annie had only woken an hour before me when she picked up breathlessly on the fourth ring. The phone echoed off the sides of the toilet as she once again regaled me with the unsavory side-effects of pregnancy. I held for a moment, hearing the water running in the sink, then her footsteps back to the phone.
“I haven’t talked to your brother yet. Have you? Wait ’til he hears all about our little adventure. Hold on.” The phone fell again. This time I waited for the flush, the water running, and the footsteps. “Sorry,” she said, this time sounding more tired. “I’ll be there at seven thirty. I’ll hunt Richie down in the meantime and make him come along even if he’s busy. I’ll also see if any of my inquiries on Rachel’s book paid off. I put a request on a couple of rare book websites. Maybe someone, somewhere will be willing to part with it. ’Kay? See ya later.” She hung up before hearing my good bye.
I tried Rich on all the numbers I knew of, but I didn’t get an answer. I left a message on his voice mail, letting him know where he could catch me and disconnected.
Jonathan’s cell phone was turned off, which meant one of two things, either he was working, and he didn’t want to be disturbed, or he was somewhere in the house. I had to get my lazy ass out of bed to find out. I showered, threw on my jeans and sweatshirt, poured myself a second cup of Jonathan’s specially blended Amazon coffee, and padded downstairs in my bare feet, cup clutched protectively in hand.
The aroma of fresh dill and cream hit me the moment I reached the breezeway heading through to the kitchen. Something with basil and onions was brewing as well, leaving behind a hint of Italian mixed with Mexican spice. Cooking with dill is not for a novice.
Quietly, hoping to sneak in on him wearing an apron, I crept by the refrigerator, peeking around the corner to an empty kitchen. A pounded copper pot bubbled gently with the contents sending out those glorious scents. I lifted the lid, took up the spoon to taste, and was instantly cut short by a hand reaching in from behind.
“You’ll have to wait for dinner,” Jonathan said, wearing an apron and a tall, white hat, proving him to be a perfectly gorgeous chef. The sleeves of his denim shirt were rolled to the elbow, and his hands smelled of fresh garlic and onion. His eyes sparkled from our first night together as true believers. I licked the spoon anyway, daring him to take it away. He just watched my tongue, calling me a devil.
“Do you know how many we should expect for dinner, Ms. Clemmons? Or haven’t you had time to speak with anyone yet?”
“Ha-ha,” I said, taking another lick. “This is incredible, by the way.”
“You expected less?”
“I didn’t really know what to expect. You said your father exaggerates. You are a perfectionist. I’ve witnessed that first-hand.” I winked flirtatiously.
He took the spoon from me and dipped it into the pot, stirring what would obviously be the sauce for tonight’s entree. “Don’t tell anyone I let you lick the spoon. It’s not very, well, sanitary.” He leaned away from me as I playfully swung.
“Annie will be here for sure. Candy and a date will also be arriving around seven thirty. I haven’t caught up with Rich yet, but Annie said she’d get him here.” I sipped from my coffee cup again, washing away the delicious taste of the simmering sauce with the much-needed injection of caffeine. “I should go into the café for a while. Can I get a ride?”
“I’ll be ready to relieve my father at the bookstore in another hour or so. I’ve got a little more prep work to do before I leave. Wanna help?”
“What would you like me to do?” I grinned at him and hoped it told him I’d happily do anything he wanted me to do. He turned the fire off from under the pot and placed the lid on tight to preserve the flavor.
“We’ve obviously got some other things to take care of before we leave. This can wait.” He took the cup from me and set it on the counter, leading me up the stairs and into his room.
~ ~ ~
At seven thirty sharp Candy, wearing a tight orange knee-length dress matching her lips, walked through the entry way of Jonathan’s mini-mansion, arm and arm with old George. I’m sure my mouth was hanging open when she introduced him to our hosts, but inside I felt sheer happiness that the two of them had come to a mutual understanding. Two good people, one great union, that’s what I told myself. Everyone has their mate.
She smiled demurely at me, batting her eyelashes as George gave me a hug, then the two of them settled on the nearest couch with two glasses of a fine French Cabernet, no doubt courtesy of Jonathan’s sister, Vanessa.
Twenty minutes later Annie showed up, alone. She looked tired and frustrated. “Couldn’t find him, Becka. Did you ever talk to him today?” She whispered to me after Jonathan and Nathan welcomed her graciously into their home.
Once she stepped into the foyer, she went silent as she took in the expanse and grandeur of the house. “This place is amazing. Just think, you’ll be living here before too long.” She giggled to me like we were back in grade school.
“Don’t jump ahead of things, Annie. Where do you think Rich is? I’m getting really worried now.”
“I tried his office,” her attention snapped back to me, “but they said he wasn’t in. I left a message on his voice mail, too. Surely, he’ll pick that up. I know he wouldn’t miss this if he had any way of making it.”
I shrugged off the awful feeling creeping over me, praying he was holed up somewhere safe, getting some rest. “Excuse me a second, Annie,” I said, “I need to see if the chef needs some help.” She moved over next to Candy and George as I joined Jonathan in the kitchen, watching him do his last-minute meal prep. Everything looked and smelled divine. Chicken parmesan over homemade linguine noodles. Caesar salad with French rolls fresh from Pyrenees Bakery. Shrimp in dill sauce as an appetizer, and homemade crème brûlée with fresh raspberries to finish. Oh my God, how I loved this man.
“Should we wait for Rich?” he asked as he laid the shrimp out in a spiral shape on chilled saucers. Three shrimp each, drizzled with sauce and garnished with freshly chopped dill.
“No, he can catch up. I don’t want to ruin this dinner. It’s too beautiful.” I kissed his forehead as he looked down over his artwork. “I’ll call them into the dining room.”
George and Candy sat next to one another, Annie directly across from George, an empty seat between her and myself. Jonathan and his father headed the table at opposite ends. With a napkin folded properly over his forearm, Jonathan placed the appetizer in front of each of us, playing up the role of host.
I was the first to dig in, waiting only a second after he sat down to taste. The sauce was incredible, and the shrimp melted in my mouth. The groans from around the table echoed my sentiment. I’d never gotten that kind of response from my cooking. I shared that thought with the group, to which they laughed and toasted to many more meals that would make them groan. The formality of the dinner was lost in that moment.
I reached for Jonathan’s hand and thanked him for allowing the people I loved into his private domain. He took my hand and kissed the top, pausing for an instant before getting up for the salads.
“We’ll be right back,” I said, following him to help.
“You’d better be,” came from Annie as the door closed behind us.
“I’m supposed to be waiting on you.” He smiled as I held out another salad plate to be filled.
“You’ve waited long enough, wouldn’t you say?”
“Since you put it that way . . .” He filled the second plate and sprinkled fresh-shaved parmesan over the top, watching me as I headed to the dining room—his little waitress.
With each course, the meal grew more amazing. Every person at the table begged for recipes. Jonathan just smiled and thanked them for their compliments. The candlelight of the room made it seem a surreal dream. Nathan regaled us with flamboyant stories of Jonathan’s childhood as the boy who’d try anything. He and his sister, Nathan said, used to amaze him with the things they’d do.
“Vanessa is the reason he learned to cook in the first place,” he said, waving his long-fingered hands in the air.
“They challenged one another. He challenged her to learn to weld, and she challenged him to become a chef. What they didn’t know is that each would succeed.”
“Yeah,” Jonathan said to curtail his father’s story. “My sister has her own iron furniture business in France. She does quite well, thanks to me.” I watched him when he spoke of Vanessa. She gave him life, I could see. This woman was as important to him as Rich was to me, and I couldn’t wait to see them together. Now I understood why he had the iron bed. It had to be one of hers.
When the spoons clanked against the sides of the empty crème brûlée dishes and the coffees were nearing their bottom, the front door flew open without a knock. The loud, anxious footsteps that belonged to my brother echoed through the entryway and instinctively toward where the five of us sat speechless, waiting for his entrance.
I stood, feeling his intensity, knowing his voiceless search meant he was determined and not in a great mood. When he stepped through the arched entryway, there was blood in his eyes.
His face had healed to early scars, and his clothes looked as if he’d worn them for several days. He searched the faces of those around the table. Annie’s, in particular, went flat with worry. She stood and started to move toward him, but he directed his eyes to me. I couldn’t move or speak. Whatever it was, I knew I didn’t want to hear it.
“Becka,” his voice stern yet shaking, “you need to ask your Knight in Shining Armor why his family killed our mother.”
I kept my eyes steady on my brother as I slowly moved the heavy wooden chair away from the table.
Before I’d register the words, Rich yelled out again. “Ask him, Becka!” This time his voice broke with sorrow and anger.
“What do you mean?” Jonathan and I said the words simultaneously, both of us now standing.
Rich moved in closer, placing his body protectively between me and Jonathan. “I mean, maybe he has been lying to us this whole time!” He pointed his finger, insistently. “I mean, why would he show up out of nowhere and attach himself if he didn’t have an ulterior motive?”
“Rich. Stop,” Annie yelled.
Tears began to form in my eyes as my mind worked hard to make sense of what my brother was trying to say to me. Distraught and shaking, I watched as Jonathan stood speechless.
“What does he mean, Jonathan?” I cried out to him, pushing against Rich to get to the man I’d come to trust completely. “What does he mean?” I repeated again, this time crying uncontrollably.
My heart fell as Jonathan slumped against the table and dropped his gaze to the floor.
“See,” Rich pointed again at Jonathan who made no move to defend himself. “He can’t even deny it.”
As Rich put his arm around my shoulder, and led me out the door, all I could do was ask why over and over. “Why?” I cried out one last time as Rich tucked me into the passenger seat and slammed the door. I never looked to see if Jonathan even attempted to follow.